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Book Review & Contest Insights from Real Reviews and Submissions

What separates great books from the rest? Below are articles with insights from real reviews and contest submissions—what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve your book. You’ll also find a wide range of articles covering writing, publishing, marketing, and more. Each article has a Comments section so you can read advice from other authors and leave your own.

Why Some Books Win Awards (And Most Don’t) — Insights From Real Contest Submissions New!

What separates award-winning books from the rest? After evaluating contest submissions across a wide range of genres, certain patterns become clear. Some books consistently rise to the top. Others, even with strong ideas and clear effort behind them, fall short. The difference is rarely dramatic—it...

What We’ve Learned From Reviewing Hundreds of Thousands of Books (And Why Most Don’t Stand Out) New!

After reviewing and evaluating books across thousands of submissions over the past two decades, certain patterns become impossible to ignore. Some books immediately stand out to reviewers. Others—even well-intentioned ones—fade into the middle or fall short. The difference is rarely luck. It comes down to...

Why Readers May be Putting Down Your Book

With thousands of books being published daily, doing whatever you can to give your book an edge can’t hurt. You’ve spent a lot of time and energy in writing your book and naturally want readers not just to buy it, but to read and enjoy...

Santa's Evil Helpers Around the World

In How to Write a Unique Spooky Story, I wrote about how to write a unique spooky story by either creating your own monster, creature, or horror yourself or by finding a monster that is not well known. I advised finding a monster by researching...

Austrian Monster Myths

In How to Write a Unique Spooky Story, I wrote about how to write a unique spooky story by either creating your own monster, creature, or horror yourself or by finding a monster that is not well known. I advised finding a monster by researching...

It Is Never Too Late To Become A Writer

Are you familiar with the 80/20 rule? It’s originally known as the Pareto Principle and it basically says that 20% of the input creates 80% of the result. In other words, only 20% of writers will do whatever it takes to become published or become...

Non-Fiction or Fiction – Which Do You Write?

As a writer, the first thing you need to decide is, which do I write? Non-fiction or fiction? Well, much will depend on what ideas you have, but there are definite advantages to both styles of writing. Some writers find non-fiction books much easier to...

Learning How to Speed Read – Part 4

Welcome back, we’re going to start off with the speed reading exercise we talked about in part 3. Speed Reading Exercise This is a very simple exercise that will teach you not to reread text. Start by grabbing a book and you will need a pen or pencil...

Learning How to Speed Read – Part 3

Time to dive in and start learning the speed reading techniques. Techniques 1 - Using Your Eye Muscles More Efficiently Although you can’t really watch your own eyes when you are reading, you can watch someone else’s, and you will quickly see just how inefficient they are,...

Learning How to Speed Read – Part 2

Welcome back. It's time to start learning how to speed read so in this part we are going to be looking at the process of learning how to speed read. That process involves four steps: Learn the correct techniques for speed reading This is the obvious starting point...

Learning How to Speed Read – Part 1

I always used to think that speed readers did nothing more than just skim through a book, not taking anything in and pretending that they had read it all. It’s all just one big scam, right? Wrong. Speed reading is a true art, but there...

Make the Most of Your Beta Readers By Using Questionnaires

Beta readers can be an amazing resource for writers. These ‘pre-readers’ of your book can help you pinpoint problem areas, spot typos, plot holes and more. However, if you don’t provide a structure for your beta readers you may not get the feedback you need...